


Divination

by sirenalley



Category: Naruto
Genre: Bloodplay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:16:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirenalley/pseuds/sirenalley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kisame knows him by the back of his head. A project in detail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divination

Kisame knows him by the back of his head. Fine black hair tied at his nape; narrow set of shoulders sloping to the bow of his spine; elbows neatly pressed to his sides; a step ahead, whole arm’s distance out of reach. They met and all he had to study was the back of Uchiha Itachi’s head. He heard the voice, laying out quiet syllables of salient threat, but he never saw those lips shape real words.

And even afterward, Kisame remembers only those most organic details. He came to remember Itachi by corporeal observations in context—the first glimpse of a pale throat, cloak folded underneath white hands delicate as bare skeleton. He knew better than to judge by appearance, but everything in the younger man sung vulnerability, lurking somewhere below his skin in the vessel of his cells. Those young shoulders held a lifetime’s burden, stressed lines carving out the very frame of Uchiha Itachi’s body. 

He might have pitied him if not for their mirrored criminal status, partnered as equals of talent and capability, however unique their skill set was.

He might have underestimated him if not for the scarlet weight of those eyes.

Yet it doesn’t take two weeks to understand Itachi possesses no especially cruel bones, possesses nothing in excess, in fact, not the way the rest of them do. He turns his cheek when Kisame buries fingers in flesh and rips out a man’s spinal cord; he closes his eyes when it rains; he disappears for hours after they’ve jointly stained the underbrush crimson. It puzzles Kisame, in no way he can name. Itachi is a black question mark hanging at the end of an unspoken question.

It doesn’t take two years for Itachi to step in front, forcing Kisame to seek the back of his head like a familiar signal in the dark. He begins to make decisions because he’s the superior strategist of the two, because he knows something about human nature Kisame doesn’t understand, may never understand, and because his eyes bleed with the advantage of Sharingan. 

It’s funny, then, when Itachi misses more obvious signifiers. 

It happens too often in roadside inns, pretty women who greet Itachi like a breath of fresh air—perhaps because he doesn’t pay attention, doesn’t do anything but speak in low tones and step to the side of the room. He doesn’t realize their cat-eyed smiles and sultry mean-talk is meant to flirt; he’s unaware of his own appeal, and _that’s_ the breath of fresh air, that’s what makes him desirable to the tired and tried women of this culture. He exudes disinterest.

Kisame could laugh, his mouth split to grinning, his teeth sharp and showing.

Beyond his personal scrutiny of Uchiha Itachi’s character, they’re paired without flaw. Their strengths cover each other’s weaknesses and they watch each other’s backs, though Kisame’s eyes linger too long to be perfunctory. 

He decides he’d like to witness Itachi’s death. He has less wish to contribute, if only so he can continue as the silent spectator of Uchiha Itachi’s suffering existence, as the filthy world digests perfection and reduces it to ash. Whatever else exists is negligible, because from where Kisame flanks his partner’s back, he is perfect, perfectly untouchable.

When Kisame discovers the other man hunting death as it hunts him, there is no remnant of surprise.

The women of the inn always end the night unhappy, spurned in their game. It’s then he laughs, a deep and throaty noise like a splinter through the quiet of the room, shaking his head, earlier’s battlelust cooling by steady increments. There’s still some left as he sinks into Itachi’s bed on his knees and closes a strong hand at his neck—something he’s fantasized since they met, to feel the fragility inside of another monster, of this one in particular, this dangerous animal waiting to die. The unblemished, unguarded column of Itachi’s throat is a relief under his palm; Kisame takes care enough to comb black strands back, and then there’s no care in him at all.

It isn’t the first time. It continues, ceaseless, and Kisame knows it could finish as abruptly as it happened, if only Itachi willed it. He won’t guess why and he doesn’t want to know, but Itachi responds like a wounded man to a salve and that answers enough in the ubiquitous silence.

Kisame knows this sight well. Dark hair loose and curtaining his face, the sheets, the sickle curve of hidden lips; his spine bent, knots of tension in the muscle from arms to toned thighs; white skin highlighted by shadow and smears of red. He wonders if he’ll scar, if his corpse will carry the circular indentations of Kisame’s teeth, and every time he swallows a mouthful of Itachi’s blood he finds he doesn’t mind the thought, as long as he sees the finished product.

They do not fight each other in battle, but they fight here—brutally. There is violence in how Kisame holds the other man on his stomach and straddles pinned legs, superior strength and stamina and durability winning a fight Itachi never strove to win. He’s facedown, held against the mattress where he wrestles for breath, Kisame’s hands around his throat an ominous threat. He never doubts how easy it would be to just keep squeezing. Blinded, out of desperation borne from disadvantage, Itachi claws the sheets, rakes violet nails across Kisame’s forearms. And they’re both bleeding all over each other.

He never surrenders, yet there’s a point they reach where Itachi’s endurance buckles; a strategist’s reminder of sure defeat. His grip slackens on the bed, lungs charred for lack of air when Kisame’s fingers loosen to reveal a circlet of bruises ringing once-clear skin. It no longer matters what or where this came from, they’ve crossed too many boundaries. 

Mapping the path from the upper ridge of Itachi’s spine to the curve of his ass, Kisame’s teeth scour flesh and he relishes the damage. There’s no protest as strong, callused hands part ankles and then hold them spread, as Kisame pries into him one invasion at a time—with tongue, then knuckles, then cock.

It goes on and on, sweat slicking passage as he slams forward, as their hips chafe, as Kisame drags him to the brink of death and then delivers him back in a pool of blood and come. All without seeing those eyes; all without a noise beyond strangled, choked gasps.

It’s relief in whichever definition, because Kisame won’t kill him when he’s doing it on his own. He’ll hover at his back—he’ll look for the scars of his teeth under the cloak’s collar from behind, he’ll watch bruises ripen, and he’ll remember what it was like to thieve from death itself. There’s no greater victory.


End file.
